poaseriesfandomcom-20200214-history
Gaia and Skye's Mediocre Adventure
“The Scourge of Gnarled Forest.” Skye read out from the wanted poster, pronouncing “scourge” as “score-j” and making a fool of herself to anyone paying attention. Frowning (not because of the mispronunciation), she turned to survey the jungle ahead of them. “You know, you’d really think they’d come up with a more interesting name.” “I think it’s plenty interesting.” Gaia, Skye’s sort-of co-worker and self-proclaimed best friend, stood at her side. To prove her point, she said the word “scourge” with the correct pronunciation. “Sc-urge. Scuuuuurge. The Scoooouuuurge of Gnaaaaarrrled Forest,” she said, trying to look Skye in the eyes as she did so. Skye rolled her own eyes so far back into her own head that they almost became stuck. Giving up on looking Skye in the eyes, Gaia placed her mighty hands on her mighty hips and mightily surveyed what they could see of the horizon. It was not a literal horizon because of the large numbers of trees in their way; it was more of a metaphorical horizon. The end to their journey. “It makes sense though.” She continued as if she hadn’t just suffered a crushing social rejection. “They’re a scourge, and they’re being a scourge in Gnarled Forest. Ergo, the Scourge of Gnarled Forest.” Still unimpressed, Skye shoved her own hands into the pockets of her coat and continued to survey the landscape with the frown characteristic of “straight men” type character. (In Skye’s instance, “straight man” was not literal, because she was both a woman and incredibly gay.) The jungle looked just as you would expect a jungle to look – green at the top and brown at the bottom, with the only other colour being the yellow of the bananas native to the area and conspicuously growing on the overhanging trees. Simian cries echoed through the jungle. Skye, who was an extremely outdoors-averse person, found this to be extremely ungroovy and felt a shudder creep up and down her spine. She certainly wouldn’t be setting foot in there if she could help it, that was for sure. “Why,” said Skye, “are we here?” “Nobody knows.” Said Gaia, in the voice of a person who was perfectly happy not knowing. “Some people think we just formed from dust, some people think-” “No!” Skye said, cross that she had been misunderstood and turning the anger outwards. “I mean, why are we physically here? In Gnarled Forest?” She folded her arms, trying to look more impressive. Unfortunately, it made her look a bit like a pouting child. This was because of how short she was. “I don’t remember signing up for a day trip to some jungle. Do we have to hunt for this Scourge person? Where are we supposed to start?” She continued to complain. Gaia had stopped listening. She had picked up a discarded banana and started to sing into it like microphone. “Sweet Caroline, bam, bam, bam,” she sang. Skye was fed up enough to think that Gaia was neither called Caroline nor particularly sweet. This was irrational of her because, of course, people don’t have to sing songs that are connected to them like that. That’s not how it works. But she was too fed up to care. The bugs around her (which appeared to have materialised in the moments in which she was angry at Gaia for singing Sweet Caroline) flew around her head. She was forced wave them away in a very unsexy manner. “We should go inside.” She said eventually, forgetting to be angry because she was too busy waving at the bugs. In front of them may have been a jungle, but behind them was a large lodge full of other detectives and hunters and spies and people whose job it was to catch other people. They had all been summoned there to catch the apparently nefarious Scourge of Gnarled Forest. Gaia didn’t want to go inside, because there wouldn’t be any bananas to use as pretend microphones inside. Skye didn’t care. They went inside. “Hey, Skye?” Gaia asked. “No, Gaia.” Skye said. This was a contrast to the normal way to respond to such a question (with a “yes” instead of a “no”) but a key faculty of Skye’s character was her irritability, and how it made her behave in an antisocial manner. So, in this instance, instead of “yes, Gaia”, she said “no, Gaia”. “How do musicians eat?” Gaia, fully aware of Skye’s character, continued to talk anyway. “Because they’re musicians. How do they eat?” “No, Gaia.” Skye repeated. As they went inside, they passed by a car park full of a large number of vehicles – most of them cars, and most of them heavily armoured enough to drive through buildings, which would surely come in handy later. (Note how the narrative draws the reader’s attention to the cars. This technique is known as “foreshadowing”, and is commonly used by fiction writers to establish things earlier on that are used later. This means that the story remains more consistent, and a reader does not find themselves asking questions such as “where did that car come from” when they should be focusing on an action-packed story.) “Good morning, evening, and afternoon.” Said a man standing on a stage. This man was the man who was in charge of Gnarled Forest, and who had called all of the people-catchers there. He thought himself clever, which is why he was saying “Good morning, evening, and afternoon” even though it was only morning. “Friends, enemies, and enemies who pretend to be friends.” He said, which was a bit more clever but didn’t really fit with the context. “Thank you all for coming.” He continued, finally saying something appropriate. Skye made sure to listen to him as he talked. Gaia tried to listen but kept thinking about the bananas. “I’ve called you here today because of the man known as the Scourge of Gnarled Forest.” The man in charge said. “He’s been bringing down all of the flights over the jungle, and all of our supplies are being cut off.” He phrased it in a way that implied he didn’t want the people living in Gnarled Forest to suffer and starve without supplies. He was actually upset because he had ordered a jacuzzi and it had never arrived. The crowd of people-catchers started to mutter. Skye was about to ask intelligent Private Investigator questions – “''when did the Scourge start to bring down flights''”, “''did anyone know how he did it''”, “''was there any bug spray she could borrow''” – when a man in a suit walked up to her. “Hello, my darling.” He said. He had shaggy black hair and a five o’clock shadow and was a very handsome man. Skye hated him instantly. “Hello.” She said, making sure to sound like she didn’t want to bash him on the head with a stick when she actually did. “Why are you talking to me?” “I was wondering what you thought about the Scourge.” The man said, cool as a pair of sunglasses surrounded by regular glasses. Skye was about to tell him that she hadn’t had any thoughts yet, because she had been distracted by him talking to her, but was distracted again by the man in charge, who suddenly yelled and clutched his chest, like he was John Hurt in Alien (or Spaceballs). He then proceeded to ceremoniously keel over and die. Everyone was shook, to say the least, by this development, but Skye was unperturbed. Such was the way of the private investigator. “Okay, first of all, big mood.” She said as she walked up to the dead man’s body. “Second of all, what could have killed him?” “Yeah.” Said Gaia, not really listening. She was still looking for bananas that could double as microphones. “Shut up.” Said Skye, only listening slightly harder than Gaia. “Hello, hello.” Said neither Gaia nor Skye. It took a moment for both them and everyone else in the room to realise that there was actually an unfamiliar voice speaking. An unfamiliar voice continued: “That was a warning.” “You mean like a warning shot?” Skye asked, thinking out loud once again. An unfamiliar voice was probably actually the Scourge, who would have, of course, been unhappy with being made to stop shooting down supply ships. The fact that this Scourge was able to kill a man seemingly without appearing, however, was a good thing to keep in mind. “There wasn’t a gunshot, though.” Said the suited man, who didn’t understand metaphors. “Let me do my work in peace,” said An unfamiliar voice, “or I’ll kill all of you as well.” A brief and to-the-point message was something Skye could appreciate, but she still had to catch the Scourge, so she began to scan the room. The Scourge’s voice sounded amplified, yes, but it was probably best to check that they weren’t hiding in plain sight. She took in everything quickly: the suited man was still obnoxious, the other invited guests were talking amongst themselves about how this could possibly have happened, and Gaia had found an oven mitt and was trying to balance it on her head. (Most people would have thought straight away to stick their head in the mitt instead of balancing it, but Gaia had the ability to be remarkably unintelligent.) Suddenly, Skye caught sight of a suspicious-looking curtain at the back of the room, with a suspiciously-shaped lump behind it. “Bingo.” She said to herself, beginning to stealthily walk towards the curtain. “Scrabble.” Said Gaia, who just wanted to contribute. Skye peeled back the curtain – only to get punched in the face. She fell to the floor with a wallop. At almost the same time, an explosion went off, and when Skye opened her eyes, she saw a decently-sized explosion (4/10, because she’d definitely seen bigger) disappearing into the breeze. All of the person-catcher types were strewn throughout the room. Or outside the room. With the bugs and the bananas. Suddenly, Skye found that she didn’t mind getting punched in the face as much. “You found me.” An unfamiliar voice said as a boot planted itself firmly on her… abdomen? Stomach? Diaphragm? It was somewhere like that. The boot planted itself there, and Skye looked up into wild blue eyes and an outrageous moustache. It was a terrible moustache, with mismatched bristles drooping whiskers and bits of food in it. She had never seen anything quite so horrible in all her life. The moustache was so horrible, it had to belong to the Scourge. After all, as everyone knows, physical features are a perfect reflection of one’s personality. She almost said “you shouldn’t have been here to begin with”, but didn’t. For a private investigator such as herself, it was bad business practice to give advice to the person she was trying to catch. She’d never make that mistake again, that was for sure. Instead, she said: “Yes.” The Scourge placed his meaty hands on his meaty waist, threw back his head, and laughed a deep, booming laugh. “Truly, I am in the presence of a master detective!” He said. Skye tried to not be flattered by the compliment, succeeding mostly because of the unflattering nature of the man giving it. (Plus the fact that he was still standing on her, and that was painful.) (Plus the fact, she realised after a moment, that there was every chance he was being sarcastic.) While all of that was happening, Gaia, who wasn’t completely resistant to explosions but still better at handling them than most other people, was trying to find a way to save her certified best friend. In an ideal, whim-serving world, she would have been able to jump in and clobber the man, and take direct action to save Skye. However, her superpowers that played a teensy role in providing her with her strength were based on a substance called Maelstrom, of which she had none to hand. Hence her reluctance. That, and what if the man saw her coming, and just trod harder on Skye? Or something like that? If she was going to do something, and she was, it would have to be something efficient but also fast. Faster than a speeding person. Her attention drifted from banana microphones to the car park, and all of the heavily-armoured and previously-foreshadowed cars within it. She grinned. Scrabble. After that, it was a moment’s hesitation on deciding which car to use before eventually deciding on the nearest one. Because it was the nearest. Following that rather sexy line of reasoning, she scrambled over to the car like a dog on ice to an owner standing on the edge of the frozen lake and holding a treat; before being hit with a realisation “''You can’t drive, you walnut''.” Her dastardly inner monologue told her. To combat the dastardly inner monologue, Gaia pretended her intrusive thoughts were an obnoxious person she knew so that she could easily ignore them, which was a common intrusive-thoughts-sufferer trick. Telling Raleigh-with-an-R to get stuffed, she jumped into the driver’s seat of the car, tried to remember how she had seen her friends drive, and stamped her foot onto two pedals at once. Meanwhile, with Skye, her abdomen was still being stamped on, and the Scourge was still laughing at her, which had quickly become a mostly redundant exercise, due to the fact that Skye had come to understand very well the fact that he was taking pleasure out of the situation that the two found themselves in. There really wasn’t any point to continuing to laugh, and yet the Scourge did it anyway. In all honesty, it was mostly just impolite. “''Okay,” she thought to herself, “''there’s almost definitely a way out of this. I just need to stay calm and think rationally.” “''OWWW.” her interior monologue screamed at her, effectively drowning out her coherent thoughts. Which was a shame – she really liked her thoughts to be coherent. “You will die,” said the Scourge, remaining an uninteresting and redundant toilet plunger of a human being, “and you will die slowly.” “You know,” Skye coughed, forgetting her rule at what was really the crucial moment, “me dying slowly means that there’s more time for an outrageous rescue.” The Scourge scowled. He began to rummage around in his pockets – presumably for a way to kill Skye quicker. Skye sighed to herself. She’d done it again. Back in the car, Gaia was trying every trick in the book to actually drive the car properly. “You really butter my crackers.” She said – subscribing to the idea that if you talk nicely (or sexily) to a vehicle, it will be more responsive to your commands. Unrelated to her flirtation (and more to do with the fact that at that moment, she finally put her hands and feet all in the right place), the car started forward properly, quickly picking up speed and crashing through the wall like the kool-aid man. Oh yeah. Skye and the Scourge both looked up at the heavily armoured, probably several-ton vehicle – but while Skye was spared by the fact she was short and also lying down, the Scourge was hit head-on with the heavily armoured car’s equally heavily-armoured bumper, and was shot across the room into the ''opposing wall. “Crikey oh-riley.” Said Skye, groovily. Except that’s not what she said, she actually said something much more profane, but basic human decency prevents her expletives from being recorded in their entirety. Still, she was alive, and she jumped up to stare at Gaia in a rare moment of genuine surprise. “You can drive!” “I can drive!” Repeated Gaia, in equal surprise. “She can drive!” Affirmed the Scourge, who was probably nursing numerous debilitating injuries from getting hit by the car, but still managed to climb to his feet and hobble out of the door with no-one stopping him. Skye made to run after him, but her legs were short and her stomach (she’d decided that that was where the Scourge had been standing) was still in pain, and she managed about three steps before sinking to the ground rather over-dramatically. “Oof.” Thus was the Scourge’s escape ensured. Skye, after a moment, found herself being pulled to her feet – but not by Gaia. By the suited man, who had made a miraculous reappearance. “Come with me, darling.” Said the suited man in an extremely unsexy way. It was unsexy in the way that a person trying to be sexy would ultimately be unsexy. “I’ll keep you safe.” “''And there go the last lingering threads of my heterosexuality''.” Skye thought to herself. “Thank you very much, but I am inclined to decline your generous offer.” Said Skye; phrasing it very politely, instead of saying “I would rather be serenaded by a chicken drumstick”, which was rather closer to what she actually felt. The car door fell open like a door that had been violently kicked from the inside, and out jumped Gaia. For reasons unknown, the oven mitt was still on her head. For reasons further unknown, she felt quite important with it there. “You alright there?” She asked. “Also, can you believe how musicians eat?” “My answers are “no” and “what are you talking about?”.” Skye responded succinctly. The suited man folded his arms and smirked, and Skye didn’t know what she was smirking at. She decided to kick him in the ankles anyway. “Can you believe,” said Gaia, “that musicians eat by stuffing bananas into trumpets and then honking them into each other’s mouths?” This was entirely untrue. Skye, for a moment, was stunned into a silence, owing to the fact that she had never heard of such a method of eating before. It was probably nonsense, but she would have to do research. “No.” She eventually told Gaia. “I can’t believe.” How could Skye not believe? Gaia hadn’t felt so disappointed since finding out that she had lost no weight after sticking to her diet for five whole hours. But Skye didn’t know this, and if she had known it, she would have been pleased more than anything else. After finishing hopping around and cursing (owing to being kicked in the ankles by Skye some moments earlier), the suited man made the unwise decision to re-enter the conversation. It was unwise because he was unwanted and unappreciated, and it is a common fact of life that you should not join conversations where you are unwanted and unappreciated. Either everyone else having the conversation is very rude, or you are in some way insufferable, or both. In this instance, it would have been both, but that would have been technically incorrect, seeing as Gaia could not be considered “very rude” in this or any instance. “Shall we retire?” He asked? “Now that the scourge has escaped, I doubt we’ll find him today. I would like to get to know you better, any rate.” This last phrase was directed towards Skye, and it was said in the tone of voice that would have someone with a less stern temperament than her pressing a panic button. As it was, Skye flexed her fingers and glared at him. This was something she had done back when she had had electrokinesis (because she had once had electrokinesis). It was a power move sort of thing. “Retiring is for senior citizens.” She said. “We have work to do, and if you get in my way I won’t hesitate.” She almost added another word onto the end, but she had been challenging herself to cut back on the curse words as of late (her previous bout of swearing was, of course, drawn from a high-intensity situation, and would not be counted). Suitably chastised, the suited man raised his hands and stepped backwards, before turning on his heel and beginning to mingle with the rest of the guests. Well, the surviving ones. 4/10 wasn’t an enormous size for an explosion, but it was bad enough to cause fatalities. Skye was left with Gaia, who basically immediately wandered off and began to look through the debris. The adrenaline wore off, and Skye suddenly realised all that had happened. Namely, she had almost perished (which had happened before, but was still about as far removed from “groovy” or the like as you could expect), and the Scourge – their target! – had escaped. This was disappointing. Skye didn’t feel merely a little bit of disappointment, or a fair amount of disappointment, no; in that moment, she was hit with an overwhelming surplus of disappointment. Her phone rang. Checking the caller ID, as sensible people did (as opposed to stupid people, who answered without looking and ended up getting wrapped up in redundant twenty-minute conversations revolving around them trying to politely insist that they didn’t want to buy anything), Skye realised that she was being called by Hera – her girlfriend. In truth, she had been wondering about proposing recently. This was mostly because she did genuinely love Hera (or, at least, appreciated her beyond toleration), but if asked, she would have to admit that she also highly enjoyed the prospect of being able to refer to someone as her “wife”. The word “wife”, as everyone knows, holds a lot of power. It’s very dramatic and serious. “That’s my wife!” “Leave my wife alone!” “I wasn’t the one who murdered my wife!” These phrases have weight to them. So it would have been fun, Skye reckoned, to be able to say them and be accurate while doing so. She answered the phone. “Hello.” She said. “''Hey babe!” Hera responded. “''How’s your investigation going, are you guys okay?” “We’re fine.” Skye said, though things were decidedly not fine. She looked over to Gaia, who was busy folding over a pamphlet that had the words “twin peaks” on it so that the words merged together to create the word “twinks”. Skye was aware that this word meant something else entirely. “''Great!” Hera said. “''I just wanted to check up on you. I know you get very focused on these cases, so I figured…” She trailed off, but Skye understood. “Thanks.” She said, touched. Not literally. “''Great!” Hera said again, sounding exactly like how she had the first time. It was a talent of hers. “''I’ll see you later! Love you!” “Love you too.” Skye affirmed, before hanging up and focusing back on her case of trying to catch a man who shot down airships and stole jacuzzi-building supplies, with a cretin for a sidekick. Utterly serious business. “Snack?” Gaia asked, waving what looked like a pretzel in front of her. Under normal circumstances, she would have declined the offer and also asked where Gaia had gotten the snack from (kleptomania, it seemed, was one of her less-prominent-but-still-totally-relevant traits), but these were un-normal circumstances. She had just almost died. It was time to treat herself. “Fine.” She said. “I’ll just have one bite.” She was, in fact, about to have more than one bite. She was about to eat the entire thing. What followed was one of those periods of time that felt extremely long without actually being that long. Sometimes time seems to move quickly, and sometimes it seems to move slowly. It actually always moves at one single speed, because that is actually how time works. This is something that everyone knows unless they forget. Skye had forgotten, and she was wondering why it was taking so long to eat a single pretzel. When she finished, Gaia ambled back over to her. “Hello!” She said redundantly. Then: “I have a plan…” TO BE CONTINUED Category:Stories Category:Short Stories